


the warmth of other sunlamps

by superkawaiifreak



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Clerifa, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Remember the flowers, Sector 5, Sector 7 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:07:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superkawaiifreak/pseuds/superkawaiifreak
Summary: Tifa wants Cloud who also wants her. But they dream of Aerith, who wants them both. A mash-up of love, sex, food -- and flowers. AU, Cloud/Aerith/Tifa, character studies on polyamory.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Cloud/Aerith, Cloud/Tifa, Tifa/Aerith, cloti
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	the warmth of other sunlamps

**Author's Note:**

> AN: The closest I can get to writing a multi-chaptered story is spinning a series of one-shots with the loosest connections a coherent story can possess. I can't tell you how much I love FFVIIR. It's like playing the game for the first time again. Oh, I made up some in-universe things like food. I wrote this after having read, like, six Virginia Woolf novels, as I'm sure you'll come to see.

_the warmth of other sunlamps_

* * *

They guessed correctly that Aerith would get the flowers herself.

Resident flower girl for whom no one had attempted to love again, notwithstanding whether they possessed the ability _to_ love her. The front doors of her house would be left open; her boots, muddied from the cold morning dew, needed tending to. It was the first day of autumn — cold and lovely and wonderful. Aerith, a believer of ritual, penciled into all of their calendar’s the third Sunday of September the word, _feast_. While the sunlamp hung above the sectors indefinitely, there once was a time when the sky, metal absent, was home to a real sun. 

Tifa would be responsible for bringing the meats; Cloud the auxiliary dishes; and Aerith, she would be responsible for the greens and digestives — and, of course, the flowers. Tifa preferred the long-stemmed variants growing along the lake; these spotted irises, they represented a perfect membrane, all of their bodies like coastlines, a separate-but-together quality illustrating the duality of vital and spiritual bonds. Then Cloud, ever-the-picky, cared only for the scents.

And then there was the issue of Cloud and his hands, her hands and Cloud. In the distance, spiral galaxies — but gliding atop the smooth convexity of her left cheek, Cloud’s tentative lips. Rising in the night, they two spoke in hushed, secretive breaths, the balcony lit only by orange glows of a beeswax candle and moonlight. In the shimmering lake before them, they swore to have seen themselves, darting in and out of the lifestream, their very bodies phosphorescent like datura flowers in their crepuscular beauty. 

The night before, she applied a similar affair of romance to Tifa. Tifa’s confident touch, her kisses as other-worldly as an angel’s. Having lived among rows and rows of vibrant flowerbeds her entire life, Aerith’s heart loved broadly and well; her smile, reflexive and light, came with such ease because she had discovered a secret: all things can be loved with unyielding ferocity. Who could choose the lush ivy crawling up the boulders surrounding her home when, across the pond, the rare rose-lilies had sprung last spring? 

They possessed — all of them, within and with and out of one another — a strange and peculiar beauty. Where Cloud strayed, Tifa delivered. On nights when his dusty blue eyes looked more like her late brother’s, Aerith would ask Cloud to recline onto his back so she could lay her head on his stomach. Busy herself with a small sketchbook and gritty black charcoal — anything to avert his gaze from hers. He’d run his hand through her hair with the calmness of meditation, letting the curls waterfall from his fingertips and onto his bare chest. Soft breaths and Aerith’s softer fingers, sometimes catching his in a brief though tender hold. Cloud isn’t sure what to accredit his sudden change in heart to — giving in to Aerith’s advances. The issue of Tifa — because, yes, he’d been sleeping with her for years — and then, in front of him, Aerith’s beauty. 

Twilight, boasting its rich confusion of skyward pollution and streaks of dull yellow from above, often called for peppered yams and shredded oxtail, toasted liqueurs, wet honeycakes, drunken kisses and chai syrups arcing into all of their cheeks — Aerith, Cloud, Tifa — and while the rest of the slums readied themselves for sleep, they summoned new ecosystems on the kitchen table. 

Aerith, a magician, is spinning a disk of salty dough in the air. Tifa presses dry meats in rosemary focaccia. Cloud — transfixed — steeps the tea. Inside Aerith’s house, in between the hand-holding and finger-licking and lip-biting and tear-drying, they gave birth to other beings (spirulina, parsley, dill) and fashion plates and candles into amature remodelings of other suns (gold-speckled chargers, stone-white china, Aerith’s resplendent sea-green eyes).

There are sightings of them around the slums. They are something of a legend. With legends, as is customary, come the cautionary tales born out of fear for the unconventional: one of them will die a slow and painful death. One of them will live freely, without regret. One of them, worst of all, will live an in-between life, half-living and half-dead. Their soul will rot. They will not have the strength or will to quell their internal storms, for it is ultimately in their purview the death of the other one. None of them will return to the planet after death. The townspeople keep their distance, afraid of damnation. From a safe distance, they watch the spectacle, hungry for disaster to strike the lives of the luminous trio.

But Aerith doesn’t see it this way. The first time she held both Tifa and Cloud’s hands, they were swimming in the lake. In summertime, Shinra Inc. boosts the Sunlamps’ intensities to emulate the changing of seasons. This had the unintended effect of scorching the slums, and by four in the afternoon, the residents would seek out cheap pay-by-the-hour pools, eat ice-plants, pour materia-flavored ice cream into their mouths. 

On that day, Aerith, glittering in a sky-blue dress, suggested they all go in for a swim. It was quiet and lonely and scorching. Their minds went elsewhere; for Cloud, it was the memory of falling snowflakes. And Tifa, she was more focused on the bodily experience of it all, would skim the surface of the freezing mountain water with her hands and marvel at its beauty. But Aerith, twirling in the water, felt a gentle unfurling in her chest. An unquenchable ache for things she couldn’t name.

She realized then that her life seemed to have lost its vigor. Always the contained angel, she felt the closing-in of concrete walls around her, suffocating. In previous slumps of depression, she had sought out intimacy with strangers, but after years of this, not even their soft touches could sate her. Weeks ago, she felt the familiar darkness re-enter her body, it wedging itself down her throat. She woke up crying. The next day, after a clandestine date with Cloud, she pulled him behind a lush rosebush and kissed him, and he kissed her back. A few days later, she visited Tifa at her bar and, challenging her to an especially flirtatious game of darts, caught her arm. Tifa, mid-dart throw, stumbled forward, searching Aerith’s face. The two of them went back to Stargazer Heights. 

This — and by _this_ meaning sex with Cloud and sex with Tifa — soothed Aerith’s existentialism until it didn’t. 

There was the barely-lit dawn when she woke up to a colossal bang outside, and not a moment after this, the metallic sunlamp above burst into a fit of light, and summer had begun. Ironically, Aerith’s darkness had returned. Faces of past lovers reappeared in her dreams; loss and mourning and grief overtook her mind and so the household. Naturally, the flowers also began to wilt. Tifa and Cloud noticed. 

Tifa, believing herself to be Aerith’s only lover, split her time between work and Aerith’s Sector Five greenhouse to assist with the dying flowers. Cloud, also thinking himself Aerith’s only lover, built himself a ramshackle behind the gardens, and tended to the soil when he wasn’t doing mercenary work. So when Aerith, on that hot summer day, suggested they all go swimming, she discovered the source of her unnameable grief. On one side, Tifa, and the other, Cloud — and her, splitting between them.

So there they swim, in that lake to the north of Aerith’s house. She’s in her blue dress. It’s wet now and translucent from the water. She reaches for their hands. Tifa and Cloud, feeling Aerith’s fingers interlace into theirs, immediately pull away. Confused, though curious, Tifa is the first to speak.

“Aerith?” She inches back to her, weary of her own body language. “What are you—?”

Aerith ignores Tifa and clasps her hand again. She looks at Cloud, equally shocked, and grabs his hand as well. Smiling, she pulls the two of them closer to her — they resist, but they don’t — and places their hands on her cheeks. And that’s how it always would be: Aerith as the vertex, the bringer of worlds, and recipient of jollity.

“I have something to tell both of you. The truth is… ” she pauses and their eyes explode, “the truth is… I’ve been dating both of you for months. And before you get mad at me, hear me out. We never promised exclusivity, and I’m not exactly the type who can date just… One person.”

Tifa bursts out laughing. “It’s funny you bring this up, because—”

Cloud interrupts, “Tifa, is now really the time to—?” 

An investigator at heart, Aerith throws her hands up, giggling. "We've all been doing the same thing, is what you're saying?"

Paling, Cloud apologizes. "Sorry, yeah, I guess we all have."

"So where does this leave us now?" Tifa turns to Aerith, who is still smiling.

"I think it means," she looks at the bright sky, "we're a trio now."

Cloud and Tifa's expressions soften. They marvel at Aerith, her easy beauty. So they’ve all been seeing each other — in secret. Tifa grabs for Cloud's hand while Aerith twirls away from them, the water sloshing, her eyes on fire.

* * *

Aerith, sheepish, covers her face.

Chest heaving, it suddenly feels like they’re larger than life itself — Tifa’s lips, reddened from Aerith’s tongue — Aerith’s collarbone spotted with iridescent water droplets, slick and shiny — and he can’t look anywhere else. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else. 

“Cloud!” Tifa calls out, waving. His eyes burn into hers.

“Tifa?” His voice lilts unevenly, as if asking her what to do, permission to look.

She laughs. “Come over here.”

Tifa moves to his other side and strokes his left arm, trying to meet his downcast eyes. “Hey, is Cloud Strife home?”

Feeling as if he’s going to break his molars, he grinds his jaw and meets her eyes. “Yes. Tifa. Cloud is home.”

“Hey, you can relax a little. It’s okay.” She massages his temple. The waterfall, magnificent backdrop to the garden, booms in the distance. 

He’s wondered for a long time if this type of relationship being presented is sustainable — and now that it’s here, beating and in front of his face, he can’t help but feel guilt. Is he taking advantage of Tifa — or Aerith? — or both of them? Since their night in Evergreen Park, Cloud concluded that Aerith’s attraction toward him was merely convenience — he looked like her first love, Zack — and until this moment, he had been okay with that. He’d been at-ease being Aerith’s intimate ghost. 

For him, she had been equally his own ghost, with her life-giving flower beds and the church bombing. He remembers scooping her up in his arms, her body ashy and splintered, and running — through all that rubble. In her divinity, she had taught him how to pray — they’d knelt together for hours in the sanctuary, a single stream of yellow light floating through the cracks of stone. Their shins bruised from incessant kneeling. He didn’t know it could hurt him, the jagged concrete of the dilapidated church, and the distant light of Sector Five radiating into their sacred sanctuary.

“What do you want me to do?” He asks of both of them.

“What do you mean?” Aerith asks, her upper body bare.

"I just," he frowns, eyeing the door, "I don't know what to do when there are two other people."

Tifa places her hand on top of his. "Maybe just start with relaxing. I'll breathe with you."

It's their first time together. Aerith had prompted it, with how she careened into her home where the two others sat at the table drinking tea. She's a whirlwind, they thought; how she brazenly dropped her basket of flowers on the floor as she reached for them both.

"And maybe some cuddling. First times are never easy," Aerith comforts. She pulls them into her embrace and they stay like that, equal parts breath and sweat, for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

Tifa kisses Cloud first.

They’re all huddled together in Cloud’s bed, their legs touching, watching a documentary on his small laptop. Tifa wonders if he can sense that she and Aerith are closing in on him, cornering him as if prey. He’s the quiet, titillating type — gently nodding his head at especially edifying parts of the film, his arms folded across his chest. She loves him like this. He is the trophy to win, the prize to devour. Tifa’s sandwiched between the wall and Cloud, and she fans herself with one hand, drawing his attention. The instant his face turns to hers, she leans into him, his lips soft and yielding. She’s kissed Cloud before, countless times — in the market, under the sheets, with her back pressed against the glass of the shower — but never like this. The excitement shoots through her neck, pools between her legs, asks for more.

He pulls back from Tifa and immediately looks to Aerith for — answers — and her stony gaze back tells him everything he needs to know. Blinking rapidly, he opens his mouth to say something but fails to find the words. Chuckling, Tifa presses down on his chest, softly pushing him back into the pillows and turns her face back to Aerith who, in leaning over Cloud, catches Tifa’s mouth in her own for a tender, ecstatic kiss. 

He’s pulling his shirt over his head before he registers what he’s doing. Moves to unbelt his pants and bucks his hips up as he pulls them down.

“Cloud?” Aerith asks, breaking away from Tifa.

“What?”

Tifa, annoyed at the change of Aerith’s attention, eyes Cloud’s bare chest, his pants halfway down his legs.

“Whatcha doin’?” She tilts her head sweetly. “Gettin’ a little ahead of yourself, huh?”

He stares back at her, nonplussed. “No.” He kicks off his pants and leans forward, his breath tickling her lips. “I’m taking my clothes off. And now I think you two should do the same.” He touches Aerith’s neck and trails a finger from her collarbone down the middle of her sternum, never breaking eye contact. Aerith bites her lip, doing her best to maintain composure.

Tifa’s shimmying out of her shorts and stockings when Aerith throws her cardigan to the floor. Both of them take the ribbons out of their hair. Cloud gingerly tosses his laptop on the desk and, turning back to them, feels their strong hands all over his body and is pulled down to the mattress, his neurons firing euphorically. In closing his eyes, Aerith’s sweet scent floods his nostrils. He reaches up to cradle her cheeks in his hands. Suddenly Tifa’s kissing his torso and he almost jumps out of his skin, a stranger to this kind of touch. She grabs his hand, placing one of his fingers in her mouth, and he lets out an involuntary, catastrophic moan in Aerith’s mouth, seeing stars.

* * *

But the dinner.

Aerith forgot to ferment the onions and carrots last week, so she will have to soak them in a super-concentrated vinegar solution for a few hours and hope, by the time Tifa and Cloud arrive, they’ll have an acceptable taste. So often she prioritized the floral arrangements for their dinners — and why shouldn’t she? — but especially for this equinox feast, the food must take precedence. She downs a black coffee and runs to the northernmost point of her garden, where the edible plants grow, and picks sylkis greens, tiger-striped tomatoes, baby mushrooms. 

Cloud and Tifa close the bar for the day. He taped a rudimentary _CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE_ sign on the front doors, knowing fully well that Barrett would raise hell about it later on. Tifa instructed Cloud to throw some beers in an icebox out in the front, out of the sun, so that chemically-dependent residents could still get their fix. They’d eat the cost, she said. He opted for the 777 — their sector’s iconic brew.

“I threw the barbecue in the oven. Should take an hour, which gives us just enough time to get to Aerith’s before sunset. How’s your stuff going?” 

Wearing a surprisingly comely apron, Cloud looks up from his massive cutting board, “fine. I’m finishing up the garnishes right now. Fuck,” he narrowly misses his thumb, “but packaging all the food might take some time. Gotta start that right away.”

Tifa dashes to his side of the industrial metal table and squats, reaching for the glassware tucked below. “No worries. I can help.” 

She hums, removing the lids from the containers. Sounds of life outside are just barely audible — children shrieking in glee, boots hitting the dirt roads, food truck vendors enticing customers, and a bossa nova song Cloud had put on the jukebox. Seeing as Tifa cooks often, she searches for a thermometer and runs to the oven, inserting it into the meat. Relieved, she walks back and stands adjacent to Cloud, eyeing the appetizers. He had prepared an impressive spread of side dishes: pickled cabbage, twelve-bean salad, cubed watermelon, plantain curry, papaya salad, and salted asiago. 

“Damn,” Tifa comments, eyeing the food, “how’d you manage all of this? It must’ve cost five-thousand gil!”

He chuckles. “I have my ways.”

“Oh? And does that mean you just traded merc labor for food?”

“Not the food, itself. Just the ingredients…” he pauses, “and not only ingredients. I got paid, too. Remember, I’m not cheap, Tifa.”

“Ha! Don’t have to tell me twice. Anyway,” she hugs him from behind, “it looks great. Tonight will be really special. Aerith loves a good equinox spread.”

His movements slow to a stop. He sets the knife down, leaning into Tifa’s warm body. Cloud’s eyes and voice soften, mind brimming with a flood of memories. “Yeah. I know.”

They stay like that for a while. Cloud, who traded power for a normal life, melts in Tifa’s capable hands, and it hits him suddenly — like it always does — the images. It comes in moments of complete peace. Imagine a small girl of the slums making her way through the collapsed expressway, toting a bag full of warm, yeasty breads — she’s whistling a cheery tune when a giant metal hand falls from the plate and pulverizes her, a splatter of blood the only proof she had ever existed. The song in the air is gone. He clutches his head. The torn-apart bodies. Burning human flesh, like rubber and shit, and that man. His breath hitches; Tifa turns him around, shushing him and cradling his head in her arms, her shirt dampening from the wetness of tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Tifa,” he says, muffled by her hair, “I — I think I’m nervous for tonight.”

She pulls back. “Are you?” 

Nodding, “yeah. This will be our first equinox dinner since we all, you know — started dating.” He grimaces and looks to the side. “What if it’s not the same? What if it’s weird?”

“Sounds like you’re worried that you ruined a good thing.”

He’s embarrassed by the simplicity of it.

“Listen, it’s okay. It’s okay because it’s us three. You didn’t ruin anything. You aren’t a bad person. Tonight? Tonight might be weird, but I really doubt it. You know why?” 

“Tell me.”

“Because it’s us.”

And that was the rationale — it was the three of them. Inseparable, connected, holy. In love and confident and so, so afraid of tarnishing the bonds between them. 

“Thank you,” he says, pulling her into another hug, “thank you.”

* * *

Speaking something into existence dares fate to turn it back into non-existence.

Aerith stares as she sees their calves flex in the sunlight, their legs taught and anticipatory as they descend from the stairs leading to her house. Tifa’s in a simple white dress, Cloud in a loose tunic and knee-length shorts. She watches them interact, Tifa playful and Cloud shy, and she sees how he shoots forward when she trips on a rock, not a hair out of place. They are unlike other people. They fight in battle like it’s a game, their chests jutting outward as if it would transform them into an aeon, eyes thirsty for blood. Tifa has a cunning face, still heart-shaped, though she never lets on how much information she actually possesses. And Cloud — elegant, a dancer of types, an unwilling fighter who carries the weight of regret. The sunlight bounces off his sword, her cheekbones. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. 

Aerith, trembling with eagerness, flings open the front doors. “Heya. Welcome back! Happy Autumn Equinox!” 

And they stop in their tracks, dumbfounded by her beauty. She’s dressed in a wraparound fuchsia dress that stops just below the knee; her auburn hair cascades in elegant spirals; those sea-green eyes can stop time.

“Aerith! So good to see you.” Tifa runs up and hugs her tightly, stroking her long curls. Cloud gives her a soft kiss on the cheek; inside, Tifa extols the perfect arrangement of flowers, silverware, and candles. A record player in the corner plays a nondescript guitar tune. Ruby-colored wine has been poured into three onyx goblets. Tifa takes a bottle of mead out of one of her many bags, and invites the two over for a toast, before they start unloading the food on the oak table before them.

“A toast?” Tifa says.

Cloud and Aerith nod, holding up their drinks. “A toast!” 

“But to what?” Aerith asks. The three of them look around.

“To the autumn equinox?” Tifa suggests.

“To us?” Aerith says.

From the corner of his eye, Cloud catches a glimpse of the next room — the parlor room from which the record player sang out, the fireplace crackling with life — and peaking from the corner are the most exquisite flower arrangements Cloud has ever seen. 

“To the flowers.” 

Tifa follows his gaze. Aerith, peculiarly, blushes. 

“Oh, it’s nothing, guys, really.”

Ignoring her, they walk to the adjacent space and gawk: white rose garlands hang in romantic loops all around the perimeter of the room; pink irises have been pressed into the hearth; foxtails and nasturtiums rest in a stone vase; the coffee table is adorned with geraniums. And in front of the fireplace are three long-stemmed lilies. Along the futon’s perimeter is a platter of sweet bao buns, adzuki bean candies, lavender, and gently-whipped pistachio cream.

“Aerith —”

“Oh, it’s nothing! You know me. I love the equinoxes. They’re… They’re a promise for the continuation of life as we know it, and yet, they signal that change is on the horizon.”

Cloud raises his drink. “Beautiful.”

“It’s gorgeous. You are magical.” Tifa’s hair catches the fading light of the sunset which, upon viewing, makes Aerith’s stomach flip. 

“Shall we toast to your genius?” Tifa raises her glass again, smiling. Their goblets clink together in perfect unison and the wine slithers down their throats. 

Jubilance hits Tifa like a flash of lightning; she feels it in her chest, her cheekbones; her flesh itself vibrates; and how can this gratitude ever be properly expressed? She’s raising her glass, clinking it with the others’, but it’s all happening through a watery veil, the air viscous and as if moving in slow motion. It pierces her gut first, then her heart — she doesn’t know what to do with the confused chaos, this electricity. Does she cry? Does she fall to her knees, grab Cloud and Aerith by the legs and confess to them, _I’m in love with you?_

She asks a question instead. “Cloud, did you set your bag down in the other room?”

He nods, wiping his mouth, “yeah, it’s on the table. Got a little ahead of myself,” he adds, seeing Aerith motion to the red liquid dripping down his chin.

“Doofus.” She grazes his palm on her way to the kitchen.

* * *

Remains of the pillar can still be seen from Aerith’s Sector Five home. The edges of two worlds touching — the plate and the slums below it. There’s a particularly uneventful day, the type where all you do is go on a walk maybe and sip on some warm beer, wondering why there’s that heavy unshakeable emptiness in the dead center of your chest again in spite of things being more or less okay. Aerith senses it from Tifa and Cloud immediately. It’s as clear as day to her, though she observes that they can't see it themselves. 

Tifa manifests this type of depression at the kitchen sink, looking wistfully out at the waterfall cascading from the cliffs, her own mind a swirling maelstrom. She’s dressed in a wispy white robe, it ruffling in the wind let in by the front doors. Aerith, creeping down the stairs so as to not disturb her, sees the stone mug in Tifa’s hand, raised mid-air. She notices the rigidity of her body and also something else — a slight wilt, a small curve forward, in her stature. 

In Cloud, it presents differently, as his general demeanor is one already of hesitance, languidity, slowness. He’s helping her pick flowers for the Leaf House. She asked him to retrieve a few handfuls of foxtails while she pulls a few lilies from the edge of the lake. It’s after she says hello to a lone gopher that she realizes he’s been gone for longer than usual. Walking up the cobblestone path, she finds him crouched down, staring intently at the flowers, his face wet. She approaches him slowly, he having already noticed her, and ruffles his hair. He stands to meet her and she pulls him into a warm hug, rubbing his back. 

The three of them, on a humid night lit by fireflies, go to the pillar, armed with only one weapon each. Monsters tend to stay inside their burrows during the rainy season, but no one could _really_ predict their erratic hunting behaviors. It’s a bold move, going to the waste land, a revolutionary one even. Perhaps they agree to the ludicrous mission for separate reasons, but reasons aside, their bodies line up and they scale the giant metal pillar, drunk off Aerith’s fermented plum juice. Cloud accidentally slams into a sheet of metal, having grappled to the wrong point on a distant pole, and he laughs about it while Tifa and Aerith insist that he let them use one of their ethers on him. 

After an hour of sideways scaling, they find a sturdy foundation overlooking the Midgar slums and swing their legs back-and-forth, delighting in the black chasm of air below. It must be two-hundred meters up. Aerith places her small palm over Cloud’s fist, her other hand on Tifa’s thigh. She’s in the middle of them this time. The world far below their feet, they gaze at the purple hues, electing ignorance. Sunlamps — all of them — are programmed to look like this: royal hues stretching across the metallic sky, a flicker of red here, a smidge of green there. Sunlamp Five — theirs — even features pollution and smog, as if to comment on the sector’s coal and mining industries. 

From the top of the pillar, the synthetic sky looks more like a watery veil, and if they look closely enough, they can spot the cracks in the steel dome: a small broken square in the upper left quadrant, a flickering stream of red. None of them have ever left Midgar. In this world and the next, there is no end to the descent — Aerith has memories flood into her from time to time, and she wonders if those images are the stories told to her by her mother, who came from the edge of another cityscape. She has this crazy idea that in overturning social conventions — one being monogamy — that she can escape the cycle. That they can all escape one day and steal away to freedom. She’d miss the steel sky and its monstrosities. She’d miss the slums, the impoverished vendors, the decimated pillar, this sunset. She’d miss — 

Tifa leans her head against Aerith’s shoulder when, on the other side, Cloud does the same.

* * *

In between dicing up a few Cerulean Drakes, Cloud is overcome with surges of bright green jealousy. He’s been unable to admit it for days, or weeks — since it happened, really — but it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t. He found the two of them, Tifa and Aerith, wrapped in each other’s arms in Aerith’s bed, their breathing deep and restful. He surveyed the rest of the room. Muddied clothes flung in distant corners of the room, a sock on the windowsill, Tifa’s boot still hanging from the tip of her toes. Sex so intense that you couldn’t move fast enough — couldn’t take your clothes off with enough dexterity — so you just start kissing and licking and fucking each other with your shirt still on, your boot still wrapped around your foot.

The chaotic rage of envy shoots up from his pelvis and settles in his chest. He lurches forward, dropping his sword on the ground.

“Don’t do that again.” He kicks a Shinra box. 

Tifa catches up to him, eyeing the box he had just destroyed. “What?”

“Just… Next time, it had better be the both of us.”

“Oh, you mean Aerith?” 

“Yeah.” He nods and begins walking back to the slum.

Tifa grins, a sing-song tune in her voice, “oh, are you jealous that I’m gonna take her away from you, Cloudy?” She circles around him, hands on her hips. All smiles.

He avoids her eyes. “Yes.” 

He flattens his mouth and continues walking, feeling the disintegration of Tifa’s playful smile in his chest. Kicking up loose dirt, she runs to catch up with him and interlaces her hand with his. 

“Remember to get your sword.”

* * *

Sometimes Cloud looks over Aerith’s shoulder and sees his face in the reflection of Tifa’s corneas. He loosens his grip on Aerith’s neck, making room for Tifa to slither in and run her fingers up and down their arms. It’s sick and twisted that they find camaraderie in their mutual fits of jealousy, and it’s only Aerith who can quell their burning rage. Tifa will sometimes look at Cloud kissing Aerith and feel a pit of despair at the bottom of her throat, convinced that she’ll only ever be an addendum, a decorative herb, a complement and never the principal — but before it can coalesce, Cloud’s hands are on her hips, and Aerith’s mouth is kissing remarkable patterns up her spine. 

The Sector Five Sunlamp illuminates that powerful waterfall where, in its currents, fish dart in and out, searching for a way out.

* * *

Her whole life, Aerith carried the burden of being the witch. It was an extraordinary burden. She’d see the hostile interactions from a mile away: the flashes of envy in Cloud’s eyes when she’d lean back into Tifa, who’d bend over and plant a romantic though messy kiss on her lips. Likewise, Tifa couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes without seeking physical touch from either of them. They knew it would be a jagged affair, without clear lines, and the only guiding logic of learn-as-you-go. Their jealousy, while making them temporary enemies, also made them friends again. It was suddenly okay to harbor such feelings as long as the other did, too. 

Aerith dealt with it well, and when she couldn’t, let her curiosity guide instead. 

Cloud’s stomach is against her back as he pulses into her and Tifa is at her front, enveloping her lips in a deep kiss, when she orgasms. It’s nearly a scream but Cloud slides his fingers in her mouth and places his head at the crook of her neck where Tifa meets him and aggressively bites down on his lip. Aerith shivers between them. A moment passes. They three move in slow motion. They think of nothing and everything, of seasons changing. Of death and how this is all going to end one day — waves rushing to the shore — and then nothing at all, their bodies convulsing as they come, their voices already distant memories.

* * *

They think they’ve perfected it. 

The evening stretches languorously in the sky like powdered gold over Aerith’s quiet home. Small butterflies flit in and out of open windows. It’s pleasantly warm inside, and a weak breeze rustles the treetops. The front door is locked shut, and in the dim living room are three sleeping bodies, their rhythmic breaths adding to the warmth of the safe darkness. Embroidered blankets wind themselves in-and-out of their exposed legs and naked arms. A basket of apples, forgotten, has been toppled over, a sweet spillage of sunset-colored fruit. The gas lamp’s flame is low, though not yet out, making their bodies appear glowing and radiant. 

Aerith’s magenta hair ribbon, it too forgotten, is in a loose ball, hanging off the edge of the down-feather futon. Three empty espresso demitasses rest in a silver tray by the fireplace, where other vestiges of mealtime rest (plates, forks, napkins). Against the glass door, Cloud’s sword. A quiet hum of breath, meditative in their patterns, and three pairs of closed eyes.

And there they are: Cloud’s arms wrapping around Tifa’s waist whose left hand rests in his tangled yellow hair and, clinging to his legs for dear life, is Aerith herself.

  
  



End file.
